to individuals
or small groups, and when they differ may cancel each other as political
forces. The original human impulses are, with personal variations,
common to the whole race, and increase in their importance with an
increase in the number of those influenced by them.

It may be worth while, therefore, to attempt a description of some of
the more obvious or more important political impulses, remembering
always that in politics we are dealing not with such clear-cut separate
instincts as we may find in children and animals, but with tendencies
often weakened by the course of human evolution, still more often
transferred to new uses, and acting not simply but in combination or
counteraction.

Aristotle, for instance, says that it is 'affection' (or 'friendship,'
for the meaning of [Greek: philia] stands half way between the
two words) which 'makes political union possible,' and 'which law-givers
consider more important than justice.' It is, he says, a hereditary
instinct among animals of the same race, and particularly among men.[6]
If we look for this political affection in its simplest form, we see it
in our impulse to feel 'kindly' towards any other human being of whose
existence and personality we become vividly aware. This impulse can be
checked and overlaid by others, but any one can test its existence and
its prerationality in his own case by going, for instance, to the
British Museum and watching the effect on his feelings of the discovery
that a little Egyptian girl baby who died four thousand years ago rubbed
the toes of her shoes by crawling upon the floor.

[6] _Ethics_, Bk. viii. chap. I. [Greek: physei t' enyparchein eoike ...
ou ponon en anthropois alla kai en ornisi kai tois pleistois ton zoon,
kai tois homoethnesi pros allela, kai malista tois anthropois ... eoike
de kai tas poleis synechein he philia, kai hoi nomothetai mallon peri
auten spoudazein e ten dikaiosynen].

The tactics of an election consist largely of contrivances by which this
immediate emotion of personal affection may be set up. The candidate is
advised to 'show himself continually, to give away prizes, to 'say a
few words' at the end of other people's speeches--all under
circumstances which offer little or no opportunity for the formation of
a reasoned opinion of his merits, but many opportunities for the rise of
a purely instinctive affection among those present. His portrait is
periodically distributed, and is more effective